Stop Global Warming or Die
LA Progressive – July 25, 2023 – Robert Koehler
https://www.laprogressive.com/climate-change-2/we-must-stop-global-warming-or-die
There’s an implication of global unity — a transcendent “we,” marching as to war (so to speak) — facing humanity’s greatest crisis, undoing the exploitative, Earth-destroying aspects of our social structure and grabbing control over the planet’s rising temperature. We need to do everything we can! Yeah, sure. And then it turns out “we” aren’t doing nearly enough. The blame gets passed around — to the rich countries of the global north, to the world’s largest fossil fuel companies. And the ice keeps melting, the wildfires rage, average temperatures keep setting records. Scientists grow ever more distraught. The cry repeats itself: We need to do everything we can!… We need to do everything we can — to minimize global warming, to deal with its inevitable effects on some. But this will only happen minimally in the context of the present moment, in which the wealthy and powerful are motivated primarily to protect and expand their wealth and power… It’s the “we” we’re stuck with, at least for now. Truly dealing with climate change doing everything we can — means transforming who we are and reorganizing ourselves as one world.
In Face of Climate Emergency, Don’t Despair, Mobilize!
Common Dreams – July 29, 2023 – Manish Bapna, president and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council.
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/don-t-despair-on-climate
Science points to clear pathways to avert the worst of climate catastrophe. Simple economics vastly favors shifting away from fossil fuels. And momentum for progress is building, with policies that have positioned the country to cut greenhouse gas emissions nearly in half. We must respond to the worsening climate crisis by building on these gains with new resolve, for this is no ordinary time… What we’re glimpsing is the Janus-like face of two competing climate futures. In one, a runaway train of climate disaster barrels down the tracks faster and faster, until people can no longer be protected anywhere as impacts verwhelm the capacity and budgets of households and governments everywhere. In the other, climate harm is tempered and hazards reduced, over time, as the United States and other major economies accelerate the shift away from fossil fuels and toward cleaner, safer energy solutions. The choice is ours, and it should be an easy one.
‘The Climate Change Bomb Has Gone Off,’ Says Jay Inslee Amid Extreme Heat
Common Dreams – July 23, 2023 – Jessica Corbett
https://www.commondreams.org/news/inslee-climate-extreme-heat
“Look, the climate change problem, the fuse has been burning for decades, and now the climate change bomb has gone off,” [Jay] Inslee [Washington governor] said. “The scientists are telling us that this is the new age. This is the age of consequences because whatever we thought of climate change last year, we now understand that the beast is at the door. We knew this beast of climate change was coming for us, but now, it’s pounding on the door.” “What the scientific community is telling us now, is that the Earth is screaming at us, and that is the situation,” he added. “I talked to a leading international scientist the other day who told me that we knew this was going to happen to us, but it’s happening to us maybe two decades earlier than we really thought could be in the realm of the possible.”
A Major Climate System Will Collapse Decades Ahead of Schedule and Unleash Devastation, Scientists Predict
Vice – July 25, 2023 – Becky Ferreira
https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3wbn7/a-major-climate-system-will-collapse-decades-ahead-of-schedule-and-unleash-devastation-scientists-predict
The new research reveals a far grimmer view of the North Atlantic’s future than the most recent predictions from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and underscores the urgency of transitioning away from the consumption of fossil fuels to curb the greenhouse gas emissions that are driving warming global temperatures… If the AMOC does collapse in the coming century, it will unleash severe disasters for the North Atlantic region. Without this circulation of hot and cold water, the higher latitudes will get colder while the tropics will get warmer, a shift that will have unpredictable and destabilizing effects on the region.
Forget Conspiracy Theories
The Crucial Years – July 24, 2023 – Bill McKibben
https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/forget-conspiracy-theories
In case you missed it, here’s the biggest thing that happened in the world last week: while our planet was experiencing its hottest month of all time, the earth’s biggest pile of cash (the asset manager Blackrock, with $8.59 trillion dollars under management) named to its board of directors the CEO of the world’s largest oil company, Saudi Aramco, which has produced more carbon emissions than any firm on earth… It’s gross when the PGA does business with the murderous Saudi regime; it’s life-or-death for everyone when the biggest business in the world sucks up to the biggest oil company… It should be obvious by now that fossil fuel companies have no real plans to change in response to the climate crisis. And that the only way forward is without them.
Oppenheimer: From Trinity to Doomsday
Common Dreams – July 24, 2023 – Robert Dodge
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/oppenheimer-movie-nuclear-bomb
Oppenheimer voiced fear that failing to immediately contain these weapons would lead to an unstoppable arms race. Realizing that this containment would not be a reality in the immediate aftermath of the Trinity test, Oppenheimer said, speaking from the Bhagavad Gita Hindu sacred script, “Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” The film’s end recalls an earlier conversation with Oppenheimer questioning their calculations of the nuclear chain reaction set in place by the nuclear explosion possibly igniting the atmosphere, saying, “We thought we might start a chain reaction that might destroy the world.” Albert Einstein responds, “What of it?” To this, Oppenheimer responds, “I believe we did.”
Oppenheimer: the Movie and the Moment to Prevent the Next Nuclear War
Common Dreams – July 26, 2023 – Marcy Winograd
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/oppenheimer-movie-nuclear-war
The ground-breaking movie Oppenheimer, despite its unsympathetic protagonist, packs a powerful anti-nuclear punch that makes it hard, if not impossible, to sleep after watching the film. For this reason alone, the movie should be shown on the floor of Congress and in the White House as required viewing by all in D.C. bent on spending $1.7 trillion over the next decades to build new nuclear weapons to kill us all. Only those with a global death wish or on the payroll of Northrop Grumman, the military contractor with the nuclear “modernization” contract, could watch this film and still root for U.S. nuclear rearmament, a horror show now underway with the blessings of D.C. politicians. Unless people rise up in fury, unless this Hollywood movie sparks a second nuclear-freeze movement, a repeat on steroids of the 80s nuclear weapons freeze, Congress and the White House will raid the treasury to expand our nuclear arsenal.
Oppenheimer and the National Trauma of McCarthyism
The New Yorker – July 7, 2023 – Kai Bird
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/oppenheimer-nullified-and-vindicated
The “father of the atomic bomb” had to be silenced because he was opposing the development of the hydrogen “super” bomb. Ever since, historians have regarded him as the chief celebrity victim of the national trauma known as McCarthyism… In 1954, America’s most celebrated scientist was falsely accused and publicly humiliated, sending a warning to all scientists not to engage in the political arena as public intellectuals. This was the real tragedy of the Oppenheimer case. What happened to him damaged our ability as a society to debate honestly about scientific theory—the very foundation of our modern world.
New Book Exposes the Horror of the US’s Endless, Invisible Wars
Truthout – July 22, 2023 – Jonathan Ng
https://truthout.org/articles/new-book-exposes-the-horror-of-the-uss-endless-invisible-wars/
Rrudderless warriors are a symbol of a society addicted to warfare. They reflect the tensions that author and antiwar activist Norman Solomon unwinds in his brilliant new book, War Made Invisible, which examines the profound causes and costs of U.S. interventionism. Solomon offers a powerful framework for understanding geopolitical crises, as well as the unseen yet enduring costs of militarism. As the war on Ukraine lurches on, Solomon highlights three underlying facets of U.S. power that are especially useful for interpreting our current moment: an embedded intelligentsia, an economy that exports violence and the infrastructure of a global empire… “Overall, America has been conditioned to accept ongoing wars without ever really knowing what they’re doing to people we’ll never see,” Solomon concludes.
The Pentagon doesn’t need $886bn. I oppose this bloated defense budget
The Guardian – July 24, 2023 – Bernie Sanders
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/24/the-pentagon-doesnt-need-886bn-i-oppose-this-bloated-defense-budget
As everyone knows, our country faces enormous crises… Along with the rest of the world, we need to make major investments to transform our energy system away from fossil fuels and into more efficient and sustainable energy sources, or the life we leave our kids and future generations will become increasingly unhealthy and precarious… Our healthcare system is broken… Our educational system is teetering… Our housing stock is totally inadequate… Let’s be clear. Defending the American people is not only about pouring money into the Pentagon. It’s about making sure our children go to good schools and will have a habitable planet when they get older. It’s about making sure that every American has a decent standard of living and can enjoy quality healthcare and affordable housing. As a nation, the time is long overdue for fundamental changes to our national priorities. Cutting military spending is a good first step.
Senate Rejects 10% Military Spending Cut
Common Dreams – July 28, 2023 – Jake Johnson
https://www.commondreams.org/news/sanders-military-spending-cut
Just 11 senators, including Sanders (I-Vt.), voted against final passage of the sprawling NDAA, which would authorize a record $886 billion in military spending for the coming fiscal year—including over $844 billion for the Pentagon and roughly $32 billion for the Energy Department’s nuclear weapons programs. The Congressional Budget Office estimated earlier this month that U.S. nuclear forces will cost the nation $756 billion over the next decade, or over $75 billion a year. By comparison, the student debt cancellation plan that the Supreme Court struck down last month would have cost $30 billion annually over ten years, according to the Education Department.
AI vs. AI: Flash Wars and Human Extinction
Counterpunch – July 13, 2023 – Michael T. Klare
https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/07/13/ai-vs-ai-flash-wars-and-human-extinction/
Though once confined to the realm of science fiction, the concept of supercomputers killing humans has now become a distinct possibility in the very real world of the near future. In addition to developing a wide variety of “autonomous,” or robotic combat devices, the major military powers are also rushing to create automated battlefield decision-making systems, or what might be called “robot generals.” In wars in the not-too-distant future, such AI-powered systems could be deployed to deliver combat orders to American soldiers, dictating where, when, and how they kill enemy troops or take fire from their opponents. In some scenarios, robot decision-makers could even end up exercising control over America’s atomic weapons, potentially allowing them to ignite a nuclear war resulting in humanity’s demise.
How Putin Blundered Into Ukraine – Then Doubled Down
Reader Supported News – July 29, 2023 – Max Seddon, Christopher Miller and Felicia Schwartz
https://www.rsn.org/001/how-putin-blundered-into-ukraine-then-doubled-down.html
The decision to invade was taken after consulting only a tiny circle. The Russian leader has since become even more isolated… It’s like when two chess players are playing. One of them is losing and bashes the other one over the head with the chessboard. Does that mean he won? No, it’s just an act of desperation. [good read – excellent analysis – worth the time]
We Can Solve Homelessness (If We Want To)
In These Times – July 20, 2023 – Sonali Kolhatkar
https://inthesetimes.com/article/homelessness-california-report-housing-capitalism
The unhoused are disproportionately criminalized by a system that pours a significant amount of tax dollars into policing rather than into affordable housing. Increasingly, cities are simply making it illegal to live outdoors, as if criminalizing homelessness will magically make the math of housing affordability work out. The UCSF report is neither the first, nor will it be the last one to explore the extent of homelessness in California. And while it makes clear how serious the problem is, the main question remains: how to solve it?… Interestingly, one of the UCSF study’s main authors, Dr. Margot Kushel, honed in on the core issue in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle when she said, ?“We have got to bring housing costs down, and we’ve got to bring incomes up… We need to solve the fundamental problem — the rent is just too high.” This is a nationwide problem and California is merely on the front lines… Rather than tinkering at the edges of the problem and putting forward complex-sounding solutions that don’t actually address the root of the issue, wouldn’t society be better served by redesigning our economy to make homelessness obsolete?
People of faith must act against nativist violence at the border
The National Catholic Reporter – July 25, 2023 – Editorial
https://www.ncronline.org/opinion/editorial/editorial-people-faith-must-act-against-nativist-violence-border
Ten years ago, Pope Francis traveled to the small island of Lampedusa, halfway between the coast of North Africa and that of Sicily. He had been moved by the news of migrants drowning at sea when their small boat capsized while trying to reach Italy and a better life. The pope said he hoped to reawaken the conscience of the world to the sufferings of migrants. As Msgr. Robert Vitillo, executive director of the International Catholic Migration Commission, said in a statement marking the anniversary, “many of us truly believed that Pope Francis had shaken the consciences of the entire human family. Regrettably, our naïve hopes did not stand the test of time.” Nowhere is the failure to reawaken the conscience of the world more evident than along the Rio Grande River. It is time for religious leaders to .. shape public opinion, summon the better angels of our nature and give impetus to long-overdue passage of comprehensive immigration reform. Catholics should be in the vanguard.
Amazon, Alphabet Workers Protest Companies’ Complicity in Israeli Apartheid
Common Dreams – July 26, 2023 – Brett Wilkins
https://www.commondreams.org/news/no-tech-for-apartheid
The employees of Amazon and Alphabet—Google’s parent company—protested Project Nimbus, through which the two tech giants sell cloud services to the Israel Defense Forces, enabling the Israeli government’s surveillance and oppression of Palestinians. The project also provides data support to the Israel Land Authority, which, according to Human Rights Watch, uses discriminatory policies to expand illegal Jewish-only settler colonies on stolen Palestinian land.
As Book Bans Sweep the US, Incarcerated People Face the Worst Censorship
Truthout – July 25, 2023 – Emily Drabinski
https://truthout.org/articles/as-book-bans-sweep-the-us-incarcerated-people-face-the-worst-censorship/
Organized pro-censorship activism has produced double-digit increases in documented censorship attempts in public and school libraries, prompted state and federal legislation aimed at restricting the right to read, and animated the presidential campaign… Incarcerated people are subject to severe forms of censorship that include bans on maps, images or books in foreign languages. In some cases, prison mailrooms simply refuse to distribute reading material at all. “It’s almost like the outside is reproducing what’s been happening for a long time on the inside,” Sarah Ball, a jail services librarian at New York Public Library, told Truthout… It shouldn’t be this way. In 1962, Muslim activist and educator Martin Sostre was denied access to the Quran while incarcerated at Attica. (At the time, only Bibles were allowed inside.) He filed suit against prison officials, arguing that he had a right to practice freedom of religion. Sostre won.
The Supreme Court Affirmative Action Rulings: An Analysis
Harvard Magazine – June 30, 2023 – Lincoln Caplan
https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2023/06/harvard-affirmative-action-analysis
Sotomayor explained in detail how she believes the majority opinion whitewashes the history of the Fourteenth Amendment, twists the meaning of Brown v. Board of Education, and overturns 45 years of Supreme Court precedent allowing race-conscious admissions practices by colleges and universities, while pretending not to. Sotomayor wrote to a hoped-for different Court in the future, but also out of urgent concern to American citizens today. The differences of opinion about law held by the majority and the dissent reflect differences in understandings about America’s purpose—about what equality means for all Americans… The decision in the case will likely prompt significant changes in admissions practices at Harvard, UNC, and elsewhere. Stirring fresh thinking about the concept of equality and the reality of inequality in America, it also provides a clear-cut reason for fresh thinking about the public good—about class as well as race in college and university admissions, because they are ever more so gateways to opportunity in the rest of society.
Education & Diversity
The Rag Blog – July 27, 2023 – Lamar Hankins
https://www.theragblog.com/lamar-hankins-education-diversity-scotus-majority-misunderstands-benefits-of-college-in-its-recent-affirmative-action-decision/
Recent research from the American Council on Education finds that diversity in education and the workplace benefits everyone: racial and ethnic diversity in education (and the workforce) leads to greater productivity, innovation, and cultural competency. In college, students should have an opportunity to be exposed to a variety of viewpoints and learn from people who are different from them in important ways. Without such diversity, those opportunities are lost…. With respect to those descended from slaves, as well as Freedmen (who also suffered discrimination), the Supreme Court needs to answer the question suggested earlier in this essay: How can we redress past and current racial inequity, injustice, bigotry, and unfairness to achieve greater equality? An unwillingness to address this question demonstrates unacknowledged racist views by the Supreme Court majority and at least one of our major political parties.
The 2024 Election Could Be the End of the Cases Against Donald Trump
Atlantic Magazine – July 26, 2023 – Paul Rosenzweig
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/07/trump-2024-election-candidacy-criminal-appeal/674827/
If, as seems likely, Donald Trump is the Republican presidential nominee next year, the 2024 elections will be a referendum on several crucial issues: the prospect of authoritarianism in America, the continuation of a vibrant democracy, the relationship between the executive branch and the other two branches of government, and much else of grave significance… The prospect that Trump will almost certainly avoid accountability for his criminal conduct if he is reelected is just a small subset of the broader threat he poses to the rule of law. But it is an emblematic possibility redolent with the odor of kingly prerogative. Sadly, the reality is clear: When Americans go to the polls in 2024, if Trump is a candidate, they will not simply be choosing between two political alternatives; they will also be making one of the most important choices in the history of the country. They will be choosing between the modern conviction that no man is above the law and a return to a time when political leaders could act with impunity. Our own national character rests on what choice we make.
A New Kind of Fascism
Atlantic Magazine – July 25, 2023 – Christopher R. Browning
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/07/trump-second-term-isolationist-fascism/674791/
I’ve resisted using the word until now, but something menacing and novel is taking shape with the possibility of a second Trump term… Unlike previous fascist leaders with their cult of war, Trump still offers appeasement to dictators abroad, but he now promises something much closer to dictatorship at home. For me, what Trump is offering for his second presidency will meet the threshold, and the label I’d choose to describe it would be “isolationist fascism.” Until now, such a concept would have been an oxymoron, a historical phenomenon without precedent. Trump continues to break every mold.
ALEC’s Funding Revealed
Portside – July 8, 2023 – David Armiak
https://portside.org/2023-07-28/alecs-funding-revealed
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) tries to rewrite the state laws that govern your rights, often benefiting huge corporations. A review of hundreds of tax filings by CMD reveals some of the top bankrollers of ALEC.
Quaker organizations celebrate UN human rights prize
AFSC – July 27, 2023 – Layne Mullett
https://afsc.org/newsroom/quaker-organizations-celebrate-un-human-rights-prize-1
The UN Human Rights Prize is awarded once every five years to several recipients at a time. This year is the first time that it has been granted to a global coalition. The prize will be presented in New York on December 10, which also marks the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This achievement was only possible thanks to tireless efforts that began decades ago and resulted in thousands of people from all across the globe joining forces to achieve a milestone: the recognition by the United Nations of the human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. First and foremost, the award highlights the importance of collaborating to advance the much-needed protection of our planet and fulfillment of human rights.
How Black Lives Matter Changed the U.S.
Yes! Magazine – July 28, 2023 – Erin Aubry Kaplan
https://www.yesmagazine.org/social-justice/2023/07/28/black-lives-matter-10-years
It turns 10 this week. In some ways it still feels like a newcomer to racial justice activism—its members tend to be young, vocal, and involved in a movement for the first time. But BLM’s cause of police accountability has been around for decades, stretching back at least to the 1960s and the Black Panthers. In Los Angeles, the brutal police beating of Black motorist Rodney King sparked historic civil unrest in 1992 and reenergized grassroots groups such as Community Call to Action and Accountability and Cease Fire. What set BLM apart from its predecessors is that it first advocated a concept—full Black humanity. The routine killings of Black people by police and others gave the concept an organizing principle, a platform on which to build wider consciousness about race-based inhumanity that touches virtually all aspects of American life… BLM’s ultimate ambition to topple a broken system—to rebuild the world—makes it comparable to the Occupy Wall Street moment/movement that swept the country in 2011. Occupy was also initially spontaneous, decentralized, and accessible, following not a person or a set of rules but an almost spiritual mandate for people everywhere to take a stand against inequality and the corrupt status quo.